Using Floccus locally with MacOS built in WebDAV service

If you are using MacOS High Sierra or greater you can use the built-in webdav service if you want to store the bookmarks (XBEL files) locally without additional software. It's super easy, just make sure your mac firewall allows incoming connections (You don't need to turn anything on in the preferences/sharing panel). Enter the commands below using the Terminal app.

1. Enable webdav sudo wfsctl start You'll get an error about certificates, but they'll be created automatically.

   [Optional] Have a look that it's running sudo wfsctl diagnose

   [Optional] There probably aren't any shares yet, but you can have a look: sudo wfsctl shares

2. Share a folder via WebDAV: sudo wfsctl share /users/shared/sync/bookmarks
   This can be whatever folder you want, just make sure the local mac user account you're going to use for webdav access has read+write access/permissions to this folder/location.

   Now see that the new share is there and says YES in the WebDAV column: sudo wfsctl shares and make a note of the share point, should be "bookmarks" in this case

You are Done configuring WebDAV.

Testing your new local WebDAV share

Now you can test it via finder (cmd-K), cyberduck, whatever. In this example the webdav url would be: https://YOURLOCALHOST:443/webdav/bookmarks

You will get prompted either by the OS or the app to accept the self-signed certificate. If you are using Chrome/Brave (and perhaps other browsers), you will need to access the base URL (and accept the self-signed certificate) of the WebDAV server BEFORE setting up Floccus. See Access self-signed WebDAV for more info.

Login to the WebDAV share using an existing local mac user account (I used a separate non-admin account, not my main one).

Connect Floccus to the local WebDAV Share

Use the settings you just tested (the full WebDAV URL, user, password) to configure the Floccus extension (XBEL in WebDAV mode). Remember, the steps above use a self-signed certificate (the OS creates) so the Floccus extension won't work unless you've first accessed the base URL via the browser and accepted the cert.

Activating WebDAV may enable authenticated WebDAV access to some or all of your user home directory. There is a setting to disable this but I haven't tested that out yet. I think it's: /etc/wfs/wfs.plist: Set SynthesizeSharePointForUserHomeDir value to false. (sourced info from StackExchange (wfsctl usage) ).